


here my garden grows drowsy

by daekie



Category: Pyre (Video Game)
Genre: Disabled Character, Drabble Collection, F/F, Multi, Nonbinary Character, Other, Possession, Trans Male Character
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-08-10
Updated: 2017-08-12
Packaged: 2018-12-13 12:13:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 5
Words: 1,259
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11759631
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/daekie/pseuds/daekie
Summary: a drabble collection for Pyre, all originally posted on the Supergiant Games Discord.  some by request, some not.





	1. a prisoner of these shaded grounds (reader)

**Author's Note:**

> _valerian, verbena. I work without gloves,_  
>  _ripping my cuticles, staining my fingertips with mud._  
>  Persephone Thinks of Leaving the Suburbs (Jeannine Hall Gailey)

Their heart was pounding - it was hard to say why, when so many other things were unknown; but it was a different sort of worry from the all-is-one-is-all feeling that overtook them during every Rite. That was a feeling of community, of _knowing_ , and they would close their eyes and reach out and have Pamitha's feathers, Rukey's paws, know every snake's eyes on Bertrude's head, feel the weight of Jodariel's horns - that was all good, that was fine, even if sometimes they pulled themself away from the book reeling and terrified because it was so much it was so _much_ \-   
  
It was easy to say why their heart was pounding, actually. They could go home. They could go home to - what? They didn't _remember_. Maybe there wasn't anything waiting for them there anymore.


	2. ghosts of former jewels (stowaway)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> on request - 'stowaway + ti'zo, being buds'.

Everything is Ti'zo's bed, Xae reasons, of course, of course! He has been here for so much longer than she has, anyone for Tariq, and Tariq is, um; he is so much more mysterious than she could really understand - he's like her but not like-her, with his tired eyes and milk-white skin - not that she knows, well, really knows what milk is like because it is sort of hard to come by here in the Downside, but she thinks it was the color of him? Not the color of her, no, almost always not, but maybe a little like-it?  Sometimes these thoughts get too-big for her head, because her head is good-sized for thoughts of the Scribes when they talk to her, but smaller things and things she can't-have sometimes get a little tossed away.   
  
But Ti'zo is, well, at least compared to her, he happens to be really knowledgeable? Even if she can not always understand what he says (which is most of the time? because before the nightwings, before them, she had never met an imp before or an imp who wore rainments or even seen rainments at all?), but he is very patient with her! One time she caught him a fish with her bare hands and he flew circles around her for minutes and minutes after he ate it and chirped at her, and it was good, and he let her run her fingers through, um, through his fur as if to say  _thank you, here is can-touch, is-okay, soft-touch_ because she'll never touch his horns, never ever, never ever.  
  
So if Xae's hair is his bed sometimes, that is okay too, she thinks?  Because even, even if nobody else believes it, she knows Ti'zo has a lot to think about and he needs lots of places to rest while he thinks about those things.


	3. the scents seem diluted, bluer, now (pamitha)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> on request - 'celebrating a birthday'. (there's no celebrating in this one i'm sorry but i got sad about pamitha)

Pamitha knows her birthday, of course, but she would hardly deign to celebrate it much anymore - not without Tamitha. Anyone who asks, they're blood-sisters, and that's true - couldn't not be, the way their plumage mirrors each other's, the way their hair falls the same way when they wore their armor - but theirs is a closer connection than that, too. She was three minutes before Tamitha. Now she's always too late for her sister.

It's Pamitha's birthday, but she hasn't told anyone except her bottle of moonshine. There are things the Reader doesn't need to know.


	4. the real, small tortures of the place (rukey)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  _the defeats  
>  that gritted your jaw against bone in the night,  
> paper cuts whose wounds gaped open and little insults  
> that drew the last of your breath from your lungs._  
> How To Quit Your Job (Jeannine Hall Gailey)

Rukey paws at his mustache - pushes it one way, then the other - it'll all be buried under his rainments and mask at the Rite tonight, it always is, but every time he comes up against the Fate he looks at Dalbert's muzzle and his well-aged facial hair before everyone's masks go on and thinks - _Does he know, he's gotta know, he's gotta know_ \- Dalbert never says anything. But he's nice like that. So dedicated to the Rites, so particular - Rukey nursed a crush on him for a little while, really, 'cause to a smuggler? A worldly-type like him? Someone like Dalbert, stalwart and honorable, reliable enough for his son to go to exile for him -

He thinks it'd be nice, maybe, but. Hey. They have the Dissidents next, maybe? Barker's a whole different ball game, and although sometimes he wants to whimper and shrink away tail-between-legs when Barker's voice rings out across the field, it's for purely business reasons. And Dalbert definitely isn't interested.

(And, okay, maybe it gets on his nerves a little bit because sometimes the Reader rings the dinner bell until his ears feel fit to bleed and he sees the way Pamitha looks at Jodariel (and the way Mae looks at _everyone_ regardless of anything, like she knows them and loves them and always will) and _Hedwyn_ never shows any anxiety about his born-smooth face. Wonder-wish, Rukey thinks, wonder-wish he was like that. But you can't buy wishing.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> to clarify: yes, in my pyre-canon there are no cishets in the downside; except the Voice but he's not even really there, so like, fuck him?
> 
> rukey and hedwyn are trans guys and although it's not specified here, the Stowaway is a nonbinary pansexual/aromantic


	5. don’t imagine your dreams come true (jodariel)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the liberation rite is won. a nightwing will go free.
> 
> something's wrong.

Jodariel turns her head and looks at the Reader, the Reader, whose skinny hands are shaking so hard it looks like they'll drop the Book - really, that should be her first clue. Their hands do not shake. Their Reader, barely out of childhood proper, with the mishealed leg and one good eye and a voice like waves on rock, their words rationed like something precious; their hands have never shook, never, like it's their one thing they can control.

 _T_ _hey are a child._ She remembers her visceral realization, crossing the Ridge, looking at the Reader next to the stowaway-girl, that strange child: the two were of an age, of a height, but the Reader's freckle-spotted face and grim eyes and inherent tiredness - how they had furrowed their brows and sounded out words, awkward at first but better than anyone else there could manage - it had hit her, then, and she had felt sick. Children, children, barely-not children; thrown into a world they did not understand or know. Even though they had been bleeding, broken, barely able to open their eyes - the Reader had still snarled and scratched, like an animal in nomad's-shape. It had distracted her from their slender shoulders, bony wrists, the way the dirt and grime had covered their face like a mask -

But now the Reader looks at her, hood thrown back around their shoulders, and every pinpoint where their fingers touch the Book glow. She doesn't recognize the voice that comes out of their throat. She doesn't recognize their stance, even-legged, shoulders thrown back - she recognizes the malevolence in their eyes.

"Nightwings," the Reader hisses, "what have you _done?_ "

She's faster, stronger, so much bigger than they are and it should be  _easy_ if whatever this Not-Reader is tries to hurt her or anyone, but - the front of the Book glows and she hears a man's voice in her head, so loud she can't hear her own thoughts - their lips are moving but they're not saying anything, not that she can tell - on the other side of the field the other-Nightwings stare, wordless, almost-frozen, not hearing whatever she's-hearing-so-loud-so-loud- _so-loud_ -

and Hedwyn is on the ground, hands to his ears, Rhae gritting her teeth and all her hair standing on end as she bats at his face, crying out soundlessly  _wake up, wake up big brother, wake up, it's so loud but i know you can i know you can please please don't leave me i am so lonely_ -

and Tariq and Celeste, up above, their hands frozen and they could be statues, no sound, their chests do not rise with breath - 

The Reader looks at her with big green eyes

_they are a child_

and drops the book

_they are a child they are a child_

and takes just a few steps backwards  
and they step right back off the edge

and the Voice  _screams._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> reader uses they/them - war orphan background, not actually all that GOOD at reading but sort of literate, which is more than most people can say - blind in one eye, severe limp from childhood injury
> 
> also probably shouldn't have tried to channel every titan star at once SORRY JODI HERE'S A DEAD KID


End file.
